


Liar

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Series: Memori Week [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, sorry guys i'm rushing to write bc i want this out before the new episode haha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 18:36:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14858076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: Memori Appreciation Week: Day Four: AngstAfter 5x05, a snippet of Memori on the run from Eligius





	Liar

At first they chase each other in circles.

Emori leading John to the rock walls that block the tracking on the collar, albeit intermittently, and then to the next ridge when Eligius gets closer.

Then Eligius catches on, and starts leaving men behind at each rocky ledge, waiting for them.

Emori doesn’t think, the first time they stumble into one of the men with a gun. Doesn’t think, doesn’t question, just reacts, and the gun trained on her and John is turned into the prisoner’s chest, and a shot echoes and he falls.

She wipes at the blood on her face, doesn’t look at John, starts running again.

It’s then that she sinks in—this is the ground. The ground where it’s kill or be killed, and no amount of softness in space can change that. Her body hasn’t forgotten, she thinks sourly, rubbing at the dried flecks of blood on her forearms. Her body remembers exactly how easy it is to kill.

And now that she’s thought that far, she realizes just how futile their situation is.

They’ve been running for the last hour, sprinting for the last quarter of it. Emori can feel her feet falling heavier, louder, and John’s step wasn’t ever quiet to begin with.  

On the one hand, it’s a mercy the Eligius crew is even less trained for stealth, because they’re covering her and John’s footfall. On the other hand, they have to be close enough for their steps to disguise hers, and that’s definitely not a mercy.

She whistles sharply, turning hard to her right and glancing over her shoulder to make sure John is following.

He is.

She makes herself fix her eyes ahead of them again, rather than stay on him. If she keeps looking at him, keeps thinking about him, them, all of it, she’s not going to be able to think of a way out of this.

Not if she thinks about the craters under his eyes, the burns around his neck, the bruises covering his skin and the new break in his nose. Not if she thinks about how he didn’t think twice about sending the rover off, not if she thinks about how he really believed they were going to leave him.

She trips.

Not enough to fall but enough to make her realize how she needs to get out of her head.

Eligius has set up at six of the rock piles, and at this point she only knows two more places, and one of them is an actual cliff, which she doesn’t like the odds of. Sure, dangling off the side of it would probably be their best shot at stopping the signal, but if Eligius finds them there, they’ll have nowhere to go.

Later, she thinks, she’ll worry about that later.

So she turns again, heading back for the waterfalls, waiting for John’s heavy step behind her.  

Five minutes later, they’re pressed against the rocks, trying to steady their breathing, grateful for the crash of water that covers their noise.

“Okay, so the last place I know is—”

“Em, you have to leave me.”

John interrupts her and her head whips towards him. He’s leaning back against the rock, his eyes fixed ahead of him, not blinking, and Emori lips her lips.

“What did you say?” she asks carefully, knowing exactly what he said. And he knows that she knows, because he doesn’t say anything for a while, just continues squinting at the sun.

“I mean let’s face it,” he says after a moment, “there’s no point in both of us getting caught.”

“Neither of us are getting caught,” she says, almost too quickly, refusing to entertain the idea of leaving him.

John sighs and it’s a tired sigh, like it’s not just his legs and lungs that are tired, and she hates how it sounds, because it sounds like giving up.

“Neither of us are getting caught, okay,” she repeats, wishing her voice sounded stronger. As it is, it sounds like she’s not certain, and like she’s trying to convince herself as well as him. Like she’s scared.

“If I give myself over, they’ll let you go.”

“There are no less than a dozen things that are wrong with that.”

“Name one.”

Emori lets out a frustrated huff of air. “They’ll torture you.”

“It’ll be nostalgic,” he shoots back.

“They’ll want to know where we are.”

“I don’t know any more about Eden then they do.”

“Then they’ll kill you.”

“Eventually.”

He says it so casually, like he’s resigned himself to it, and Emori hates that. “It’s not happening, John, you can’t ask me to—”

“And you can’t ask me,” he bursts, and she can tell that the volume of it surprises even him. He draws in a sharp breath, gathering himself. “You can’t ask me to lead them straight to you.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that.

Because she wants to protest, wants to say that’s not what they’re doing, but the collar around his neck means that’s exactly what happens.

“Look,” John says, before she can say anything else. “Any of those dozen things? None of them is worse than you dying because of me.”

“Right back at you,” she mumbles, then clears her throat. “If I leave you here, John, it’s on me.”

John shifts beside her and she knows without looking at him that he’s turned. His shoulder is pressed against the rock and he’s facing her, his eyes heavy on her, but she can’t face him. She can feel his breath on her shoulder but she refuses to turn to him.

“Look at me.”

She can’t.

Because if she does and he’s right, if she does and he sees her, then what? Then the last time she looks in his eyes is as he tells her to leave him? She can’t do that, and she doesn’t realize she’s shaking her head, until John’s hand is on her chin. His touch is light, hesitant, and she can feel the callouses on the pads of his fingers; her eyes flutter shut.

It’s the first time he’s touched her—intentionally, carefully touched her—in six months.

So when his thumb brushes up her cheek and the pressure changes, what else is she supposed to do but turn her head and open her eyes?

He’s close.

So close, his eyes bright even though they’re still bloodied. She’s always marveled at his eyes, at the light color of them, so different than hers and Otan’s. Eyes that look like the sky, that hold the stars, that are full and conflicted, and deeper than he even knows. They’d leapt at her from across the desert, begging her to see him, to look at him, choose him.

They’ve come a long way since then.

John’s hand drops and she feels the loss of his touch like a physical blow, like her anchor is torn away, and before he can say anything, she’s speaking again.

“This is not how we end, John,” she says, her voice thick, each word careful. “We did not launch into space, rip each other apart, come back down here, to end like this. I do not leave you here and you do not make me; that is not who we are.”

His eyes look between hers and she can tell that he wants to fight her on this. But she knows, and he knows, that she’s stronger. And he might think he’s right, but she knows she is, so they’re doing this her way.

John looks away then, his eyes skimming over the water around them before settling back on her. And he looks like he might say something, or something else, but then they hear a crackle of radio, and they both know what that means.

“This way,” she says, voice low, “Now.”

There are plenty of rocks around the waterfall, and with any luck, they’ll be gone before Eligius realizes it. Three minutes of a headstart isn’t much, but she’ll take it.

Emori doesn’t make the mistake of leading the way, only to turn around and find him not there. Instead, she points the way and he hesitates for a moment before she lifts her chin and he goes. She follows him, and then they’re running again. Weaving their way in and out of trees and through the woods and once everything blurs around them, Emori realizes the cliff is their only hope. So she veers sharply, checking constantly to make sure he’s behind her, and he is.

When they break out of the woods, his step fumbles.

Emori doesn’t. She strides quickly to the edge of the cliff, looking over the edge to find the ledge that she remembers. She turns back to John, beckoning him to come over.  

“What are you insane?” he hisses, coming over. “We have to keep moving—”

“It’ll block the beacon,” she says, interrupting him. “We don’t have time for this, John, we have to get down there before they come out of the woods.”

He looks like he wants to protest, but then something flashes behind his eyes.

“Okay,” he says, in a voice she doesn’t recognize, but doesn’t have time to analyze. “How do we get down there?”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” she mutters.

The ledge only about a foot wide, albeit plenty long, but it’s a decent drop from the top of the cliff. There’s a pretty sizeable rock and a plethora of smaller ones along the edge of it that she’s pretty sure, with enough time, they can turn into a makeshift stairs, but it’s the drop down that worries her. She’s pretty sure it’s too tall for her to lower herself down, although John could probably make it...

“Alright,” she says evenly, trying to think quickly. “You have to go first because of the collar; then you can catch me.”

“And leave you up here for them to see? No way.”

“John, you—”

“I said no.”

That tone she does recognize; he’s not budging on this.

“Okay,” she says carefully. “Well I can’t make that drop on my own.”

“Then I’ll lower you down.”

“With your busted shoulder?”

“Just about every part of me is busted, at the moment,” he says, jaw ticking, “So I can either make my shoulder worse by lowering you, or completely mess up my back trying to catch you. Personally, I like my odds being short a shoulder.”

He’s right.

She hates it, but he’s right.

“Fine,” she mutters, creeping closer to the edge, “we have to hurry, though.”

He lies down on the side of the cliff, leveraging his weight against hers. There’s a terrifying moment when she knows his arm can’t lower her any more and she has another foot or so to the ground of the ledge, but then she looks back up at him, and knows he’s not dropping her unless he can he sure she’ll stick it.

“You ready,” he grits, and she doesn’t have to say it for him to know that she is.

He lets go.

She falls for half a breath, but then she hits the ground, bending her knees to absorb the impact. The ledge is wider than it looks from where they were above it, and she lets out a short sigh of relief.

John’s faces flashes with a similar emotion when she looks back up at him.

“Okay,” she calls, “Come on, John, you have to hurry.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He says it so quietly, with such odd inflection, that she doesn’t understand. She tilts her head back to look up at him, and her breath catches in her throat at the expression on his face.

He hasn’t moved.

Hasn’t slid to the edge of the cliff, hasn’t lowered himself down, hasn’t done anything since he saw that she was safe.

And she’s an idiot; she should’ve seen this coming, especially now that he sees understanding dawn across her face, and a sad smile creeps across his.

“John Murphy,” she says evenly, refusing to let her voice shake and refusing to admit that this is happening. “Get down here.”

He stands up.

Holds her eyes, wipes at his nose, looks across the canyon, before back down at her.

“John,” she says again, more urgently, hearing the panic rising in it. “Don’t do this, please.”

“You can push those rocks together to climb up,” he says carefully, nodding at the rocks farther down, and Emori swears her heart has stopped beating.

“Yes we can,” she calls, almost desperate, “ _we_ can, please, John, the cliff will stop the beacon, just get down here and—”

“I already told you,” he interrupts her, shaking his head slightly, “nothing they can do to me is worse than me knowing I led them to you.”

She’s shaking her head, willing her eyes to clear, needing her mind to think faster, thing beyond the panic that’s welling up in her.

“Please,” she manages, and his face flashes with something like regret at the sound of her voice so broken. “I can get us out of this. Please, just come down here; I’ll think of something else where we’re both safe.”

And John looks like he wants to say a million different things, but then he shakes his head. His eyes meet hers; she can see the blue of them and the heart in them from all the way down here, and she hears a soft laugh, a sound like a memory and like a goodbye.

“Liar,” he says, and she knows exactly what he’s thinking and it makes her eyes cloud even more, though she wishes they wouldn’t. Because then they’re full, and then she blinks. And then he’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> why yes, that was a callback to emori calling john a liar when he told her her hand is badass, because i hate these two for the pain they're putting me through


End file.
